Page 82 of Vance

I force myself to meet his gaze, to remind myself of the empty place where I once went looking for his love, only to find nothing waiting there for me. But the blue eyes staring back at me aren’t as distant as they used to be.

“I’m moving my things into the guest bedroom. A room you are not welcome in,” I continue, each word harder to push past my lips. Forcing myself to hold his gaze when every part of me wants to look away, I have to swallow against the knot tightening in my throat. I can’t let him see how close I am to breaking. “Not after you decided to fulfill your needs with your assistant.”

“Like hell you are,” he snarls as he takes a menacing step toward me.

“This isn’t up for debate, Vance,” I insist, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. I push off the stool to put more distance between us. “This is the only offer on the table. You can accept it, or I can walk out that door again, and you will never be in this child’s life.”

I expect him to rage, bargain, or threaten me, treating this no differently from how the Ashford men would approach any hostile negotiation.

“I don’t accept,” he replies flatly.

Nothing in our entire tumultuous relationship could have prepared me for those three little words. He needs me. He needs this marriage and this baby to secure his family’s company, his father’s legacy. It’s the entire reason we’re in this mess. He can’t just… refuse.

“What?” I whisper, feeling the blood drain from my face.

“Whatever you think—what I know you think happened—isn’t what actually happened.” His voice is rough with emotion. Letting out a heavy sigh, he runs a hand through his already disheveled hair, his gaze pleading. “Just listen to me, sweetheart. For five minutes. Just listen. Please⁠—”

“Please don’t give me the ‘I tripped and my dick fell inside her’ excuse,” I scoff. “We both know I deserve more than that.”

His jaw tightens at the accusation, hurt flashing in his eyes followed quickly by an urgency I’ve never seen in him before. “I walked into my office,” he begins, his words tumbling out in a desperate rush. “Melanie was there. She was… was blatantly offering herself to me. But I didn’t touch her. I didn’t want to touch her. After making that abundantly clear to her, I turned around and walked out, leaving my phone on my desk.”

I shake my head.

“I was late getting home because that meeting we went to wasn’t legit. Beckett got hurt. It was bad… I was with him at the doctor’s all night. The moment we finished surgery, I tried to call you… but it was already too late.” He takes a ragged breath, his eyes never leaving mine. “You had already tried to call me, reaching Melanie instead of me. It was lies… Every last word out of her desperate fucking mouth… I was halfway across the city.

I stare at him, my mind a whirlwind of chaos. It’s an elaborate, desperate lie. It has to be. The alternative, the possibility that he’s telling the truth, is too much to process.

“Vance—”

“I swear on our child,” he cuts me off, closing the distance between us in a few quick strides. Before I can recoil, he reaches out, his large palms gently pressing against my still-flat stomach. The heat of his touch sears through the thin fabric of my dress, and a shudder wracks my body. “Nothing has happened with her—or any woman—for the length of our marriage.”

“Don’t,” I choke, batting his hand away. “Don’t do that. Don’t use our baby.”

“Do you still not believe me?” he asks, his voice a raw, broken whisper. He looks around the pristine kitchen, his gaze landing on the butcher block. A desperate, wild light enters his eyes. Before I can react, he pulls a large chef’s knife from the block and rushes toward me. I gasp, stumbling back, my heart hammering and lungs seizing.

Reaching me, Vance grabs my hand, his grip like iron as he shoves the handle into my palm. Roughly wrapping his own hand over mine, he yanks it toward him in a sharp, violent motion. The tip of the knife pierces the fine fabric of his shirt, and a tiny, crimson blossom begins to spread against the pale gray cotton.

“If you don’t believe me, just fucking kill me.” His face is inches from mine, and his eyes are blazing with a feverish intensity. “Because I can’t go on without you. I can’t live in a world where you don’t love me, where you walk away from me, where I’m supposed to wake up every morning and pretend I’m fine.”

His chest heaves, every breath ragged with emotion, as he cups my face, his thumbs trembling slightly against my skin. “I love you, Sophia.”

The words hang between us, stripped of every defense he has ever used to hide behind.

“I fucking love you. I have loved you for longer than I knew what to call it. More than I ever thought myself capable of. You got past every wall I ever built, every fucking lesson my father beat into me about what love was supposed to be, and somehow, you became the one person I can’t live without.”

His gaze searches mine, fierce and unwavering.

“So, if you don’t believe me, if you really think I could choose another woman over you, then kill me. Because the rest of my life, I don’t want to live it without you.”

He eases forward, pressing his forehead to mine, his jaw clenching as he eases further onto the blade separating us.

“You are my life, sweetheart. And I can’t go on without you.”

Vance Ashford, the man who constructed walls around his heart higher and thicker than any fortress, has just laid his feelings bare, with my hand wrapped around a knife pressed to his chest. His eyes locked on mine, he waits without another word, leaving the decision in my hands.

“You… you love me?” My throat tight with disbelief, I choke out the whisper. I’ve spent most of our marriage—especially the past few weeks apart—convincing myself he was incapable of such a thing. It was the cornerstone of my decision to come back. He didn’t love me. He couldn’t. It was going to be the reason I could endure this contractual marriage.

“I love you.” His voice raw, and his gaze unwavering, as he stands before me, a willing sacrifice with his heart beating beneath the tip of the blade. “I have for a while. I was just too arrogant—too fucking stupid—to see it. Too scared to admit it.”